It's seven o'clock on the evening of May 17th and there's a festive atmosphere in the office of Fu Jen Catholic University Computer Center director Lin Hung-yen.

The daily teaching assistants' journal from Jhongsiao Elementary School in Taidong County is being projected onto a large screen as teachers and assistants at Fu Jen crane their necks in anticipation of the information being downloaded.

As the list of names of those who have been selected for admission to National Taitung Girls' Senior High School is announced, the room erupts in squeals of delight.

"Peiyi and Peizi made it!"

"And to think their dad thought it pointless for them to keep going when they were in grade school."

"Quick, go tell your classmates – their kids got into their top choice!"

How is this possible – that the "kids" of university students are already entering high school?

As it turns out, a group of faculty and students formed Fu Jen's Remote Village Distance Tutoring Team to spend their winter and summer breaks holding classes at remote elementary and junior high schools. The rest of the year they provide tutorial guidance via Internet video linkups, offering nonstop instruction throughout the year.

The university students have grown accustomed to referring to these elementary and junior high school students as their "kids." When they see their kids gain admission to a top-ranked high school, it's as if a member of their own family scored top academic honors. These moments of success are the result of five years of effort.

Five Years of Unbroken Tutelage

As a celebratory banquet gets underway, more than 150 of the university students remain in four computer classrooms downstairs providing online academic guidance, transmitting their knowledge over the Internet.

Using video feeds to provide free home tutorials offers students from economically challenged backgrounds someone to look out for them. The idea originated with the "Digital Learning Partner Program," launched in 2006 by the Ministry of Education's Computer Center.

Five years on, the program has expanded to five districts across Taiwan, encompassing 28 universities that serve 1,000 underprivileged students through 88 elementary and junior high schools. Fu Jen Catholic University serves as the Tutorial Center for Northern District 1.

"Once the computer hardware was in place, we needed a systematic implementation and long-term oversight," says Ministry of Education Computer Center director Ho Rong-guey. Fu Jen's system to ensure educational quality has faculty and students gathering each Tuesday and Thursday evening from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in their respective school's computer labs for one-on-one online lessons.

The Fu Jen team has broadened the Digital Learning Partner Program into a community service that accompanies pupils over the long-term. They take advantage of vacation periods to meet with their kids, and on Saturdays they provide daycare services at Catholic churches in New Taipei City's Wugu District and Kaohsiung's Liugui District.

The university students that take on the role of tutorial instructor do so of their own volition and receive NT$110 per hour for their efforts, which Lin Hung-yen wryly notes is about the same one would get working part-time at a gas station. Additionally, nearly NT$2 million in expenses goes to usage fees for the video software.

Faced with a looming budgetary crisis at the Ministry of Education, Fu Jen has taken the initiative to approach Chunghwa Telecom and other private sector organizations for donations in hopes of maintaining its current scope of operations. The tutorial instructors are all too aware that many of their underprivileged charges come from broken homes and that to abandon them now would inflict pain anew on their already wounded spirits.

Fu Jen's tutorial achievements have already resulted in an opportunity for many junior high students to continue on through high school.

Far off in Taidong County, Jhongsiao Elementary School general affairs director Wu Ting-ying discovered that a number of the school's graduates had found themselves unable to keep up with the academic pace once they reached junior high school. So she got together with Fu Jen to create the "Jhongsiao Elementary School Junior High Extension Program," using Jhongsiao classrooms and privately donated equipment to continue offering tutorial guidance.

Fu Jen instructor Lu Zi-han says this sort of cram school may be unique in the world. But after seeing the first group of graduates gain admission into top-ranked schools, she's sure the experiment has proven a success.

Wu Si-ru, academic affairs director at Taoyuan County's Jieshou Junior High School, adds that those graduates of her school that took advantage of the tutorial program and went on to attend National Chungli Senior High School have all ranked at the top of their classes in academic performance. She attributes the success of the Fu Jen student instructors' efforts thusly: "It's not just their compassion – they also have a systemized, institutionalized methodology."

Lu Zi-han, an instructor at Fu Jen's College of Foreign Languages and guidance director for the program's student tutors, is the heart and soul of the Fu Jen Tutoring Team. She began working with Lin Hung-yen when Fu Jen signed on with the Digital Learning Partner Program in 2007, with Lin taking charge of the technical aspects of the required computer hardware and software and Lu handling the cultivation of the teaching capabilities and sense of responsibility among the student tutors.

Lu believes that the tutorial program not only helps underprivileged kids with their academics, but perhaps more importantly, promotes social consciousness by putting university students in contact with people from other walks of life.

Sun Ching-zu, a senior majoring in German at Fu Jen, signed on as a student tutor her freshman year and has been tutoring the same student for four years now. She says the experience has taught her to see things from her student's perspective, and she now recognizes the family and social structures that lie behind lackluster classroom performance.

Jiang Chung-ming, a senior majoring in applied statistics and information science, says he has gained self-confidence from the program and an understanding of how he can give back to society. Senior French major Wang Yue-syuan says she learned teamwork and an understanding of how to pool team resources to solve problems.

Senior English major Huang Yi-ting was admitted to the graduate teaching program and has resolved to serve in remote areas. The emotional bonds that develop between the student tutors and their charges are unshakeable. For example, program assistant Wang Ya-fang makes daily calls to keep an eye on students in need of special attention.

Lu Zi-han hopes the tutorial program is ultimately not strictly limited to improving the class work of a few elementary and junior high school students. What she's working to cultivate is the mindset of university students, because they are soon to step into the real world as the leaders of tomorrow.

"The learning difficulties kids have are definitely rooted in the family, and that's a social problem," she says. "I hope to be involved in something of a social movement to wake university students up, so that they can reorient themselves as the conscience of society and root out the causes of suffering from society's darkest corners."

Translated from the Chinese by Brian Kennedy